Who We Are
by Art-Over-Matter
Summary: Five very different YouTubers awaken to find themselves locked in a strange place they don't recognize...but then again, how would they recognize it when they can't remember who they are...? Rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

The first thing Tyler felt upon waking up was confusion.

He sat up in...bed? Was this a bed? As he looked around, he realized he was lying on a plain white mattress in a small, undecorated room. The walls were entirely white except for one, which had a pinkish-red grid across it.

Tyler looked down at himself to find that he was only thing in the room that wasn't white. Well, his skin was its normal tone, but he was dressed in the most distasteful skintight clothing-dark gray-blue, thick spandex with, again, a grid across it, but in black.

It was at this point that Tyler panicked.

While he realized immediately that this outfit was something he'd never normally wear, what really got to him was that he had no idea what he would prefer.

He couldn't remember anything about himself.

Tyler pulled his knees up toward his chest and rested his elbows on them, running his hands through his hair. He frowned. What did his hair look like, again?

Another wave of panic came at him and he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

 _Calm down, Tyler. What do you know?_

He knew his name was Tyler, though his middle and last names escaped him. He remembered what his hair looked like now-it was light blond, shorter on the sides than the top, and he always styled it to stick up and slightly to the left. He knew he'd never been to this place. He knew he was homosexual and that he was somewhere in his twenties. He usually wore thick-rimmed black glasses, though currently he didn't have them on and he could see just fine.

Tyler stood and looked around the room again. With a pang of shock and fear, he realized there was no door. But as he approached the wall that had been painted with a red grid, he saw it wasn't what he had thought. It wasn't paint at all. The wall was made entirely of barely-reflective glass, and beyond was what seemed to be a hallway. The reason he'd mistaken it to be a normal wall was because, again, behind it was entirely white. The red grid-which was merely colored glass-seemed to get infinitely small, each division of nine squares being separated by smaller and smaller lines.

Tyler shook his head. _I must be dreaming._

He tapped the glass with a finger to see if it would do something cool like shatter instantly, but it didn't.

 _If I'm thinking about dreaming, I can't be dreaming. Right?_

 _If I were dreaming, I would remember who I am._

That dreadful panic came rushing back and Tyler spun around, putting a hand to either side of his head and starting to hyperventilate.

"What-what the fuck am I doing here?" he asked aloud, almost surprising himself with the sound of his own voice. "Am I...going insane?"

XXX

"Anthony, wake up," Ian demanded.

Anthony blinked awake and looked up at Ian with a frown. He stared for a few seconds before shaking his head and saying groggily, "What the hell are you doing in my room-" He stopped himself and sat up, looking around at the bare white room.

"Yeah," Ian said. "We're not _in_ your room."

Anthony's gaze snapped back to Ian. He looked uncomfortable-scared, even-and Ian knew exactly what had just dawned on him.

"Ian, who are you? Wh-who am I? Why the fuck can't I remember anything?"

Ian sighed and sat down on his own mattress. He closed his eyes and put a hand around his forehead, trying to keep his own fear from getting stronger.

"I don't know who I am," he told Anthony, "and I don't know who you are, either. I think we're friends, though, so I guess that's good."

"What are we doing, though?" Anthony asked, looking around himself, lost.

Ian shrugged. "I don't know, but panicking isn't the best way to go. I already tried that."

Anthony frowned again. "How long have you been awake?"

"I have no idea. Not very long, I don't think, but there's no way to tell time in this place. And no," he said, watching Anthony peer at all the walls, "there's no way out, either."

XXX

 _How long have I been here?_ Connor asked himself, staring at his vague reflection in the glass wall.

There was no way to tell. He'd woken up what felt like hours and hours ago, but had it really been that long? He was starting to get hungry, if that was any indication. So maybe it _was_ an hour or so?

He continued to stare at his faint reflection and convince himself that he wasn't crazy. This was a real place. He wasn't dreaming. He couldn't remember who he was.

But there was a _reason_ for it, surely. It seemed like something out of a sci-fi movie...except so much more real.

Not, however, any more believable, which was perhaps why Connor was questioning his sanity.

He turned away from the reflected man's frightened eyes and studied the room again. There was something in the corner of the room that he hadn't noticed-a bucket about the size of a very small trash can, full of water.

Of course, it was white, so it nearly blended in to the rest of the room, but Connor still felt that it hadn't been there before.

He approached the water almost suspiciously, slightly disturbed by the fact that he hadn't seen it before. On the bright side, maybe it would mean some food would appear before long.

He scooped some water out with his hands and drank it-it could've been poisoned, he supposed, but what choice did he have?-but paused before taking a second gulp.

Dropping the water back into its container, Connor picked up the bucket to feel that it was relatively heavy-though undoubtedly the water helped with that-and solid, possibly made of glossy ceramic.

He glanced at it, then at the glass wall.

Yes, there was something to this.

XXX

Jack awoke with a start. He didn't know what caused it-he hadn't been dreaming-and he couldn't remember ever having decided to sleep. He couldn't remember...

All hints of sleepiness left him with a jolt as he realized. He sat up and looked around, panicked. Where was he? _Who_ was he?

Jack...Sean...Dammit, one of those was his name. Why could he not decide which? Maybe they both were his name, somehow. He'd made a legal change?

All thoughts of his name cut off when he saw the hole in the wall opposite him. It was a glass wall, divided into sections by a red grid, and low on the right side, there was a triangular hole, surrounded by spiderweb cracks. It looked so...wrong against the perfect geometry of the grid.

Jack stood to find that he was wearing odd, skintight clothing that was dark bluish-gray with a faint black grid across the fabric. It almost reminded him of a wetsuit of sorts, just made from spandex.

Definitely not his choice of clothing, but whatever.

He stood up and walked over to the cracked glass. The hole wasn't big enough for him to fit through, but if he tried to break the glass, he probably could.

A loud grinding noise behind him made him jump and spin around. At the corner of the otherwise empty room, a panel had opened in the floor and a bucket of sorts was rising out of it.

Jack walked over cautiously to see that the container was filled with a thick, black liquid that looked like motor oil. It had no odor that he could smell, but whatever it was, it certainly wasn't potable.

The platform it was rising on clicked into place and the grinding stopped.

Jack shook his head vigorously and backed away. This was wrong. All of this was so wrong, including the fact that he didn't even know what was _right._

He took in the room again, but it was completely empty. A mattress, the bucket of nasty. That was it.

He glanced up to all the corners, thinking that maybe there were cameras and he was in some sort of facility. No. He almost would have preferred that, because that way, at least, there would be some _reason_ he was locked up here.

And a guarantee that somewhere not too far away, someone knew he was here.


	2. Chapter 2

Tyler was sure it had been hours. There was no night or day and no clocks, but he was certain he'd been here for at least two hours. He'd found the water in the corner, but his appetite and thirst had both come and gone. He'd searched the walls high and low for some sign of a way out, but there was nothing. He'd looked down the hallway to see if there were doors, or cameras, or people. God forbid, people. What he would give to see another face right now.

He had lifted the mattress with the hope that there was something relevant under there, movie-style, but there was nothing. Nothing, and now he was left alone with all the dreadful whiteness and his thoughts.

He felt diseased. He was a crazy amnesiac who'd been sent here to die, away from human contact lest he spread whatever had happened to him to others as well.

He knew that story was unlikely. But at this point, what the fuck even mattered?

Tyler had pretty much given himself a headache while racking his brains to try to remember something. Anything. His last name, maybe? The city he grew up in? The last time he'd been in a relationship?

He was on the verge of a breakdown, but he suppressed it to the best of his ability because he knew it wouldn't help.

But could anything help?

XXX

"Goddamn, I wish I had a watch," Anthony said, still pacing around the room.

Ian sighed and lay back on the mattress, folding his hands behind his head and staring up at the ceiling.

"How long do you think it's been, Ian? One hour? Three hours? A day?"

"Why are you so obsessed with the time?" Ian snapped, tired of Anthony's questions.

"Why do _you_ not care how long we've been here? Sure, we have water, but there's no food and there isn't even a fucking toilet!"

Ian couldn't argue with that. He could hold off without food for a while, but the lack of toilet was going to be a problem.

Anthony sighed in frustration and sat on his own mattress. "Are you sure we can't break the glass?"

"Do you really want to beat yourself against it until you're bruised? You can't just break glass with your body, Anthony, this isn't a movie."

Anthony rolled his eyes. "Well, if it were up to you, we'd just die in here without making any attempt to get out."

"Fine! Go try to figure out how to escape, Anthony. Good luck, you're going to fucking need it."

"And you can just sit there like a worthless-" Anthony stopped suddenly and frowned, looking down at where his hand rested on the mattress. "Ian?"

"What?" he sighed.

The expression on Anthony's face-confusion and slight excitement-quenched Ian's irritation in a heartbeat.

"There's something in here."

XXX

Water and shards of ceramic were spread across the floor. The glass remained unbroken, though cracks had sprung up in two places where the corner of the ceramic container had hit the wall.

Connor had sunk to the floor after ramming his shoulder into the cracks a few times, and he now sat with his back against the glass, surrounded in shards of pottery. He watched numbly as his blood dripped to the floor.

In breaking the container against the glass, he'd managed to cut the hell out of his hands and wrists, and though none of the cuts were serious, they collectively produced enough blood to run down his hand and fingers and fall to the floor.

A bright red contrast in all the white.

 _If there's anyone from my previous life out there, are they looking for me? Do they know I'm gone? Do they know I'm here? Do they care?_

 _Connor Franta. Does anyone know that name? Does anyone know me?_

He straightened suddenly, looking up to the wall across from him. Connor _Franta._ He knew his last name-it wasn't even like a recalled memory, where you're pretty sure something's right, but there's a margin for error. No, this was undeniable.

 _My name is Connor Joel Franta._

A rush of excitement ran through him, and as did a renewed desire to try to get out. The more he saw outside this place, the more he'd remember, he was sure.

He stood and reexamined the cracks he'd made in the glass wall. It looked as though they went all the way through, which meant there was still a likelihood of him being able to break through.

He stepped back and kicked the glass as hard as he could with his heel. A jolt of pain ran up his leg, but he heard a _crunch._ He kicked again, and this time, the glass gave way.

XXX

It only took Jack body-slamming the glass above the triangular crack a few times for the glass to break. It busted outward into the hallway beyond, creating a jagged hole about half the size of a regular door. Jack, of course, had gone right with it, and was now sprawled out on the floor and the shards of glass. The pieces weren't going through his clothing, but a few had managed to slice into his palms and he caught himself on the other side. He muttered a few cuss words, but overall, the pain meant nothing.

He was out, and now he had to figure what the hell else was in the hallway.

If anything.

The hallway was, without a doubt, kind of creepy. Intimidating at the least. It stretched on for as far as he could see, though it was all perfectly well lit and never seemed to gray in the distance, as he'd expect it to.

He took a few steps forward, and the lights flickered. Jack froze and turned around. There was nothing behind him and he wasn't really sure why he expected there to be, but there was definitely something about all this that set him on edge. The lights in the hallways flickered again, though the ones back in the room didn't.

If this was some way to try to tempt him to go back, it wasn't working.

He faced deeper into the hallway again and started walking. The farther he went, it seemed, the more the lights flickered, until he'd made it about a hundred meters from his cell.

Then they buzzed and flicked off.


	3. Chapter 3

Tyler's breakdown came much later.

It had felt like an eternity in that cell. He couldn't fathom how long he'd been here, but he had to guess it was at least a day. His body had gone through a cycle of wanting sleep-and before that, he'd gotten thirsty enough to finally drink the water he'd found in the corner-so he figured this was day two.

Day two was his breakdown.

He'd finished searching-yet again-high and low for anything in the room that would indicate a way out. Of course, he'd come up dry.

He couldn't remember who he was. He didn't know where he was. He couldn't get _out_ of where he was.

But what really got to him was the loneliness. Despite his complete lack of memories, he knew he was the type of person who took great comfort in the presence of others. Now, having gone an entire day in utter solitude, he had to just break down and cry.

He didn't get far with sobbing, though, when movement from his side caught his eye. The previous day's container of water was gone, and a new container-this one seemingly filled with some kind of broth-was silently rising out of the floor in its place.

Tyler immediately walked over the corner of the room before the platform had risen fully and pulled the new bucket out of its spot, setting it aside. He hesitated for a moment, unsure of what he was doing, then slammed his foot down on the rising platform, jamming it in its place. He stomped it again to see what would happen, and surely enough, the white tile broke off of whatever was carrying it up and it fell away, down into a deep, black shaft.

XXX

They'd found the card what felt like eons ago.

Anthony had torn apart the outer layer on his mattress to find a small card-much like a credit card or keycard-inside the fabric. It was white with a red grid, just like that on the glass wall, on one side. The other side was stranger. It had an intricate pattern of silver, iridescent squares and triangles across about a third of the card. Ian had a feeling that part could be scanned in order to access something, but though he and Anthony searched high and low for any kind of place to slide it in, they came up with nothing.

By the time they'd both finally finished looking, Ian declared that he felt tired and they decided to turn in for the night, figuring it was around midnight.

When Ian awoke the next morning-or whenever it was-he knew that something was different.

"Anthony Padilla," he said after a few minutes of lying in bed, slowly waking up.

Anthony, who was already up and pacing again, spun around suddenly. "What?"

"You're Anthony Padilla," he said, delighted. "I remember you now."

Anthony's eyes lit up, but he looked hesitant. "But Ian, I don't remember anything about you."

Ian couldn't help but be disappointed. "Nothing? I remember you, but I don't remember myself."

"You're...you're...Ian Hecox," Anthony said, and he grinned. "Finally, Jesus."

Ian felt a flood of relief. Hecox. Yes, that was right. Ian Andrew Hecox. He vaguely remembered meeting Anthony back in elementary school, and if his memory served him, they'd remained close friends ever since.

"So, now that we know that," Anthony said after a few minutes of silence, "how do we get out?"

A sort of heaviness settled back down on Ian, but as soon as he looked up from where he was sitting on his mattress, he saw their solution.

"Anthony," Ian said, standing without taking his eyes off the slot in the wall. "How did we miss this?"

XXX

The glass crashed down in front of Connor with an ear-shattering clatter. Glass spread out into the hallway and Connor was struck first with a sense of victory. Then, a few moments later, with sudden fear. It was only now that he'd ever considered what he might find out here. He could assume that whoever had put him here didn't want him to escape, so what sort of obstacles would he find now that he was out?

Connor got his answer all too soon.

He took the time to get some water into his system before leaving, unsure of when he'd next have access to such a thing and knowing there was no convenient way to take it with him. Something gave him the feeling that this building-if that was an accurate way to describe whatever he was in-was massive.

Connor glanced around the room one more time before heading off down the hallway.

He'd only taken a few steps when a series of clicks sounded behind him. Frowning, he turned back to find that his room was being closed up again, this time by a solid white wall that folded out into the empty space in a grid pattern. When it was all said and done, another distinctive red grid was laid out on the wall.

Connor shook his head. "What is it with this grid thing?" he muttered to himself. He realized it was the first time he'd spoken aloud and it was the first time he could remember hearing his voice. It didn't surprise him, really, but it felt strange to talk now after so long in silence.

"Okay," he said quietly, "let's not go crazy, shall we? Normally talking to yourself _is_ a crazy thing, but I feel like this is an exception."

He'd just finished talking and had turned away from where the room had been when he noticed there was a new wall folding out in front of him.

Immediately, he charged through it before it locked him in, but as soon as he had, there was another wall appearing even faster a few dozen feet ahead.

"Shit, you're really gonna do this to me?" Connor muttered, and then he ran.

One after another, he made it past walls that kept closing from either side, but for as long as the hallway was, he knew he couldn't keep it up forever. A couple times, he caught sight of what could have been a doorway to his right, but he never spared the time to stop.

Connor's lungs were burning and his legs were starting to fatigue, and the walls never seemed to stop...

At last, he risked a pause. He could see the outline of a door-the only one he'd seen yet that was to his left-and he stopped to try to open it. He knew this break would prevent him from going any farther, but his own body's limits would do the same, eventually.

Connor's gut twisted when he realized there was no door handle. He shoved it with his shoulder to see if it would open that way, but he wasn't so lucky.

The wall clicked to completion, and he was trapped.

XXX

Jack stood in the hall for a moment after the lights went out, uncertain of where to go. He could continue forward, but he'd have no idea of what lie ahead of him.

 _What is this, some kind of cheesy horror game?_ he asked himself, trying not to be too concerned about it.

Horror game...

Something in his brain clicked, and he remembered something about himself. He was a gamer. He played video games for a living, and he wasn't entirely sure how that worked, but it was something. Jack...Jacksepticeye. That was how most of the world knew him. Why did most of the world know him, though?

He didn't know how long he stood, frozen, in the middle of the pitch-black hallway, straining to remember something else. But nothing came to him.

Jack took a deep breath and took a few steps forward. The best thing to do now was not lose his sense of direction, which he could easily do if he didn't keep to a wall. If he got turned around, he'd figure out pretty quickly, but it would be a waste of time.

He wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible.

It didn't take much of him walking before he ran into a wall.

"What the fuck?" he said aloud.

This wasn't right. He knew he'd walked straight forward, and there'd been a whole hallway stretched out in front of him. What the hell was this?

He felt along the lower left side of the wall to see if there was a hole-in which case, he was insane and he _had_ gotten turned around-but it wasn't there.

He stood there, puzzled, and wished desperately for a light.

Then he remembered how he'd noted that the hallway had never looked hazy with distance when he'd looked at it before.

Because it wasn't really there.


	4. Chapter 4

Tyler never heard the tile hit the ground below.

Admittedly, he got distracted quickly.

Only a few seconds after he'd broken the floor, the room shuddered slightly and started to move downward. It started to pick up speed as it went, until Tyler almost felt himself grow more lightweight, as though it were approaching free-fall. He almost wished he'd been able to climb down the shaft-though he knew he wouldn't have been able to fit-and control his own speed.

But this, at least, was fast.

The room hit the ground suddenly and Tyler was thrown to the floor by his own momentum. He groaned and pushed himself back up, looking toward the glass wall to see what had changed.

Instead of a hallway, he was faced with a massive maze...of grids.

The glass wall slid to the side, opening like a one-sided elevator door.

Staring in both fear and awe, Tyler brushed himself off-though there had been nothing on the floor-and walked over to what he was seeing.

It was a giant, 3-D grid. The layers of gridding were about four feet apart, starting at the floor and rising up until it disappeared above the ceiling. It was as though Tyler had found himself at the edge of the world's largest, inside-outest, Rubik's cube. Almost. He could see straight out along a tunnel that went as far as his eyes could show him. Periodic, four-foot holes on all four walls also stretched the length of it and Tyler was reasonably certain that it was the same to either side. Maybe all directions.

 _This is proof,_ Tyler thought, shaking his head slowly. _I am literally insane._

A sound behind him caught his attention and he tore his gaze away from the sight in front of him.

A fire had started in his room.

It was just a small thing now, eating away at the corner of the mattress, but it was spreading. The mattress was the only flammable thing in the room that Tyler could tell, but the room itself was only the size of a small bedroom, so if the whole thing caught fire, the rest of the place would be too hot to stay.

He didn't hesitate to leave the room, but he regretted it almost as soon as he did.

He ducked out on the first plank of the grid-each of them was a good foot wide-and stopped dead.

Tyler wasn't very tall, but in order to fit into one of the grid squares, he had to duck. What he faced a few inches from his feet was an infinite chasm of this grid, a hole that stretched so far downward he couldn't see past the vague, distant, whiteness.

Tyler felt like he was about to faint, and he swallowed hard.

 _Tyler Oakley, what in the name of God have you gotten yourself into?_

XXX

It took a moment after Ian stuck the card in the slot for anything to happen. He slid it in and out liked you would a credit card, then waited. About three seconds later, something near the slot-which was on the wall right next to the giant glass window-slid away and there was a loud _thump_ that made the whole room vibrate slightly.

Then, nothing.

"What the fuck?" Anthony said, frustrated, a moment later.

Ian frowned and shook his head. "I don't know. _Something_ should have happened."

Anthony approached the glass wall-window, whatever it was-and pushed it slightly to see if anything happened.

The whole wall wobbled and fell outward.

As soon as Ian saw it coming, he stepped back and covered his ears. Still, the glass shattered on impact in a rush of high-pitched, deafening clattering.

Ian and Anthony were silent for a few seconds, then looked at each other.

"That's one way to do it," Ian said, scoffing out an uncomfortable laugh. What kind of unwanted attention might they attract with such a noise?

"Apparently," Anthony agreed. "Now, I guess we just...go."

Ian shrugged. "We don't really have any other options, do we?"

"I suggest you keep that card, though. It's unlikely it'll be worth anything, but there might be a chance it could access other stuff, too."

Ian glanced at the card, then nodded. "Good point."

He watched Anthony look around the room in a helpless attempt to think of something they should do before going. Then they looked at each other and wordlessly started to walk down the seemingly unending hallway.

"Anthony," Ian said, stopping after less than a minute as a thought occurred to him.

"Yeah?" Anthony asked, halting as soon as he realized Ian wasn't walking.

Ian looked up at his friend. "There's no fucking way it was a coincidence that we found that card. Whoever put us in that...place...wanted us to get out."

Anthony looked at the floor for a moment, then back to Ian. "Yeah."

"So...? You're not concerned about that?"

"Well, what choice do we have? There's nothing back there. They didn't even give us real food."

"Yeah," Ian said conciliatorily. "I guess I just feel like we should be on guard. I don't trust anything about this situation."

XXX

He didn't know how many times he'd tried to figure out how to open the door, but he couldn't find a thing.

Eventually, Connor slumped against the wall, defeated. This wasn't a door. It was probably just a distraction so that he'd get trapped here instead of trying to run.

"How about screaming at you?" he asked the door. "Would that work any better?" He opened his mouth to say more, but closed it again immediately. He remembered what he'd been thinking earlier about not going insane, and he didn't figure talking to a not-door was going to help with that.

 _"Voice-activated commands enabled,"_ a female, computerized voice said, making Connor jump about out of his skin. It seemed to be coming from the not-door. _"State name and access code."_

"I don't have a fucking access code," Connor said to it.

 _"Command not understood. Please restate command."_

Connor frowned as he noticed how it kept saying 'command.' That would suggest it could do more than just process an access code, right?

"Uh...define possible commands?"

 _"Command not understood. Please restate command."_

"Damn," Connor said under his breath. What now? There _was_ a way to open the door, but he had no way to know what it was.

He looked around, hoping to see some sort of hint as to what the code would be. Something about the pattern of the grid on the walls caught his eye. Surely it meant nothing, but at this point he'd try anything to get out of here.

"Name: Connor Franta."

There was a _ding_ like a noise a smartphone would make, then the computerized voice said, _"Name confirmed. Please state access code."_

Connor frowned. Did 'name confirmed' mean it would accept that? Why would it be programmed to accept _his_ name?

 _"Please state access code."_

"Hang on, shut up," he grumbled, still deep in thought. The pattern seemed to repeat, but how many times? Was that relevant?

Connor finally stood and walked over to the wall grid. There was something in him that was certain the grid had something to do with this, given that it seemed to be everywhere. With a hesitant frowned, he said, "Access code: nine...nine...nine?" He paused. "How many nines do I have to put?"

 _"Access denied."_

"Crap, okay..." He looked at the pattern again. He could try four, maybe, or three. Four nines? Nine fours?

"How many characters in the access code?"

 _"State name and access code."_

"Dammit! Name: Connor Franta."

 _"Name confirmed. Please state access code."_

"How many _characters_ in the access code?"

The computer took a moment to answer. _"Undefined."_

Part of Connor was frustrated, but another part of him became suddenly confident.

He frowned at the grid for a few more seconds before turning to the door. He spoke hesitantly. "Access code...nine...to infinity."

He held his breath while the computer processed.

Then, the smartphone noise sounded again. _"Access granted."_

XXX

Did this mean he was trapped, again? Fuck! What was the point of this?

Jack felt down as much of the wall as he could reach-the ceiling was just a bit too tall, he figured, for him to touch-but found nothing.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," he said, standing in what he assumed to be the middle of the hallway.

Without warning, red lights flicked on overhead. Even though they were dim, they seemed bright after the complete darkness, and Jack blinked several times, squinting, before opening his eyes fully.

A loud _thud_ sounded out from behind the wall. Jack jumped and scrambled away from it, his heartbeat instantly rocketing in speed.

There was a pause, then an even louder _thump_ and Jack heard something crack. He backed away from the wall, ready to turn and run-to a dead end-if necessary. Then the wall exploded, the force of the blast sending Jack sprawling backward onto the smooth, shiny floor. It wasn't a blast of heat, just of a strange...energy, and though Jack was certain he'd see something on the other side, there was nothing.

Nothing but bright, bright whiteness.

Jack covered his eyes with his arm, yet again temporarily blinded. When his eyes adjusted, he saw a white hallway-a _real_ white hallway-stretched out in front of him, except this one had an obvious difference: there was a silver handrail along the right-hand side. It was an odd interruption to all of the monochromatism.

The red lights were still on above him, but the next hall behind the destroyed wall was lit normally.

 _Jesus Christ, this is like some kind of convoluted Presentable Liberty?_

Jack frowned, having not realized he remembered playing Presentable Liberty, but shook his head and dismissed it.

He got up off the floor and hesitantly picked his way over the rubble and into the white light. As he stepped forward, the lights to either side of him and up to about three feet in front of him turned red. When he took a few more steps, into the next white-lit section, they also turned red.

Jack started to make his way cautiously down the hall, the lights going red each time he stepped into the white light.

He heard a sort of dripping sound behind him and he whipped around. Though he must have missed it the first time he walked past-or it had just started-there was a thick liquid dripping from between the ceiling tiles. It looked black, which could either mean it really was black, or it was red, which would look black in red lighting.

So great, it was probably blood.

 _Can this_ get _more cliche?_ Jack asked himself, turning away and trying to convince himself it didn't matter.

The sound of something exploding again behind him finally made him run.

He sprinted without even thinking, sparing only one glance behind himself. He hadn't been wrong-there was something behind him. But the hallway curved slightly as he kept moving and he couldn't get a good look.

He kept running until he saw the corridor branch into two passages in front of him. He took the one on the right, and promptly ran straight into something.

The impact forced the breath right out of him and he sprawled onto the ground over what felt like another body.

"Ow-fuck," Jack said, still struggling to breathe correctly. He pulled himself onto his hands and knees.

"Jesus," another voice said from whomever he'd landed on. "You're telling me."


	5. Chapter 5

Tyler wasn't sure how long he'd been climbing. He'd decided arbitrarily that the best direction to head would be up, because he'd fallen all this way underneath a building, so surely if he went up he could reach it again. Besides, if he looked up, he swore he could see an actual ceiling, whereas all other directions looked sickeningly infinite.

In a way, Tyler wanted to curl up in a corner and cry. There was something about the vastness of this all that was undeniably intimidating-not to mention the fact that he was the only living thing as far as he could see.

He climbed the gridline as much like a ladder as he could, but since they were so much bigger, he almost had to do a pull up every time to climb to the next level. Fortunately, it was a pull up from eye-level, as Tyler was pretty certain he couldn't do _half_ a pull up from above his head.

On the plus side, Tyler was semi-ecstatic that he could remember his last name. Tyler Oakley. That was right. He couldn't remember a middle name, nor was he even certain that Tyler was his _first_ name, but it was start.

His identity, at least, was something for him to think about as he climbed up through the grid structure, trying to distract himself from the fact that if he fell, he would literally break every bone in his body before landing thousands and thousands of feet below.

Maybe that was an exaggeration. Whatever.

It took what felt like hours of climbing before he reached the top. He had to rest periodically, of course, so maybe it _was_ an hour or two, but regardless, it felt like forever.

He'd realized he was about to reach the top long before he actually got there, because he could see above him that all the white grid blocks disappeared and there was open space.

When he finally got there, he felt a rush of relief, as though a weight called claustrophobia was lifting off his chest. Tyler didn't really have claustrophobia, but after being squeezed between beams that were four feet apart for a long time, it was nice to be out in the open.

Even better was the fact that he could see a doorway.

Despite finally having broken free of the grid, there was still a ceiling high above him. It appeared to be some sort of greenhouse material, which meant he was probably technically outside, but the lighting was bright gray, as though it was overcast, so he had no blue sky to prove it. Off to the left of where his elevator ride had taken him, he saw a more solid wall out in the distance and easily caught sight of the dark, rectangular shape on the side of it.

It was much easier to walk on top of the beams than climb straight up them, so Tyler made his way quickly to the wall-though it still took a fair few minutes of walking-and up to the doorway.

Inside was a room just wide enough to not be a hall and about forty feet long. It was mostly empty except for an odd sort of sculpture of stacked boxes, each getting smaller in size until the top was about half the size of a tissue box.

At the far end of the room, a wide staircase descended to the floor, and at the bottom of them was a young man.

Tyler had to do a double take. He'd gone what he estimated to be almost two whole days without seeing another person, and given that he couldn't remember anyone from his previous life, seeing another person like this was something of a wonder.

The young man hadn't caught sight of him yet, but as Tyler took a few steps forward, he looked up and they made eye contact.

Something was familiar about him.

The seemingly dark eyes, the thick eyebrows and wavy, slightly messy hair that looked like it had been styled several days ago but was still stubbornly trying to keep its form. The man looked about Tyler's age-though really he didn't remember what that age was-and was a fair few inches taller. He had a slight red spot on his cheek as though he'd been sitting with his head in his palm for some amount of time.

"C-Connor?" Tyler said, and he wasn't even sure why. It was just the name that came to mind, and for some reason he was certain it was right.

The other man-yes, Connor-frowned and turned his head slightly away, looking slightly wary. "Do I...know you?"

Tyler shook his head, his eyebrows starting to pull upward above his nose, but he almost smiled. "I have no idea."

XXX

"Ian? What's that sound?"

Ian slowed his walking pace, frowning. He couldn't hear anything. "I don't know what you're talking about. What sound?"

Anthony glanced at him as though to judge whether or not he was joking. "It's like a really low throbbing noise. Like someone's obnoxious dubstep or something."

Ian stopped walking completely, his eyebrows creeping ever lower. "I really don't hear anything, Anthony."

Anthony shook his head. "Whatever. No big deal. Let's keep going."

They continued along in silence, but Ian could tell that sound was bothering Anthony. Ian couldn't remember exactly how old the two of them were, but if they'd known each other since elementary school, Ian wasn't surprised he could read Anthony pretty well. How fucked up was it that he felt fairly close to someone he couldn't remember anything about?

"Ian, you've got to be kidding me," Anthony said tightly, putting a hand on the side of his head.

"What?" Ian insisted, though he knew what his friend was talking about.

"You can't hear that?"

"No," he said impatiently. "I swear to god I don't hear anything."

"Jesus, it's so fucking loud," he groaned, brining both hands up to cover his ears.

Ian felt suddenly very uneasy. This was yet more to stack up on the wrongness of this situation. It made _no sense_ that Anthony was hearing something Ian wasn't so it meant either Anthony was crazy or Ian was.

Obviously, neither option was good.

Anthony was miserable now, Ian could tell. His face was frozen into a grimace and his hands were pressed firmly onto either side of his head. He sank down into a crouch as Ian stood helplessly. This was so bad he was in pain, and Ian still had no idea what he was hearing.

Ian heard a quiet click behind them and he turned to see a part of floor a few hundred feet away fall away. It was the width of the whole hallway and perfectly square-shaped, and as Ian watched, an identical section did the same, slightly closer. The tile shuddered, then started to sink slowing into the floor. Before Ian lost sight of it, he saw it drop to free-fall, leaving a deep hole behind.

 _Oh, fuck. You've got to be kidding me._

"Anthony, we need to go."

"What?" Anthony said-more loudly than necessary-through clenched teeth, looking up at Ian.

"We have to go. Now."

He watched another part of the floor drop away.

Anthony stood, still keeping his hands over his ears, and followed Ian's gaze. "Shit."

"Yeah."

The collapsing pieces of floor got ever closer, speeding up until multiple squares would start to fall at once. Anthony seemed partially incapacitated by the throbbing noise in his ears, so Ian grabbed his arm to turn him around and they started to run.

It didn't take long for Ian to spot doors to his right. He passed up a couple before looking back to see they weren't going to be able to outrun the falling floor.

"Anthony, hang on," he said breathlessly. "I'm going to see if this keycard's worth anything."

He stopped at the next door-which had no handle, but did have a slot for the card on the right side of the doorway-and tried the key. He heard something buzz and nothing happened.

"Fuck. Go," he told Anthony, "this thing doesn't work."

Anthony, who seemed to be ignoring his phantom noise for the time being, hesitated, seeing that Ian wasn't about to run yet, but started to jog ahead.

Ian turned back to the door and tried the card again. He got the buzz. Maybe it really didn't work, but maybe it was like one of those difficult hotel locks that you had to try fifteen times for it to sense correctly.

He glanced to his right, where the tile one away from his was starting to shudder. To his left, Anthony had stopped a few dozen feet ahead.

"Ian, just give up; it doesn't work."

Ian didn't respond, but he tried the card one more time.

This time, the door beeped.

"Get your ass back over here," he called hurriedly to Anthony as the door slid open. He could feel the floor beneath him shudder.

Ian stepped through the door to the other side-hardly noticing what the room looked like-and turned back to see Anthony sprint toward the doorway. The section of floor was starting to sink now and Ian almost called for Anthony to stop, but by then it was too late. Anthony dove for the doorway as the floor fell away.

He landed halfway. His chest hit the corner of the doorstep and the rest of his body slammed into the wall of the void. Ian heard him grunt in pain, but he'd caught himself and was now hanging over the pit.

Ian rushed over and helped pull him into the room.

They both sat in silence once Anthony was successfully in the room, Ian feeling shaken and Anthony lying on his back with his eyes closed and jaw clenched, breathing heavily.

"Anthony?"

He opened his eyes and finally sat up. "Yeah?"

"Still hearing something?"

He shook his head. "No," he sighed. "Thank god, no."

XXX

Something about being around this other man made Connor uncomfortable. He could tell not just from the fact that he'd known his name, but from the way he _looked_ at Connor that he recognized him. Connor, of course, had no such recognition of this young man.

"What do you mean you have no idea if I know you?" Connor paused. "And...do you mind me asking your name?"

"Tyler," he replied, answering the second question first. "And I...I can't really remember who the fuck I am, so... I mean, I know my own name, obviously, and I _swear_ I know you from somewhere, I just...can't remember what."

Connor cocked his head. "Okay, that's literally...so weird. How did you get here?"

Tyler shrugged, and for the first time, Connor noticed he looked like he had tears in his eyes. "I just...I just kind of woke up here. Dressed in this godawful thing, and without any memories."

Connor took note that Tyler was wearing the same kind of thing Connor was, and it was then that he became certain they were in the same situation. If there was a reason they were here, it applied to both of them.

"I think..." Connor started, but he stopped when Tyler stifled a sob. "A-are you okay?"

Tyler nodded, wiping his eyes, and smiled slightly. "I'm not, like, upset or anything." He looked at Connor. "It's just...I feel like this is the first time I've seen another person. I don't remember any faces of people I've known in my life, and-sorry. I get emotional too easily."

"No, uh...it's okay," Connor said. "Now that you mention it, I kind of get what you mean."

Connor gave Tyler a minute or two to compose himself. When he was finished, the blond man took a breath and said, "Okay. You were saying...?"

"Um, yeah. I'm in the same situation as you, I think. I can't remember my life, either."

"I thought it was weird I recognized you but you didn't remember me. If I hadn't been so certain I knew you, I would've gone back to thinking I was crazy."

Despite the mild creepiness of Tyler being very sure he knew Connor and Connor not recognizing him at all, it might prove useful. If Connor couldn't remember anything about himself, maybe Tyler could to some degree.

For now, that wasn't a priority.

"So where did you first wake up?" Connor asked, making himself comfortable on the bottom step. He felt a little weird to have just met Tyler-or so he felt like-and immediately be nailing him with questions, but he had to figure out if they were really in the same situation.

"Some little, like, bedroom-sized cell with a glass wall and a cheap mattress."

"And the glass had a red grid across it?"

Tyler nodded. "You were in the same kind of room?" When Connor nodded, he frowned. "How did _you_ get out? Did your room end up being an elevator, too?"

Connor's eyebrows knitted in surprise. "No. I just broke the glass. It was a fucking elevator the whole time?"

Tyler shrugged. "I don't know. Mine was. It got activated when I broke the panel the water kept coming up on. And given where it took me, I probably would have preferred the hallway."

Connor was skeptical. "I only got re-trapped again when these walls kept building themselves in front of me."

"Then how'd you get out of that?" Tyler asked, finally sitting on the far end of the same step Connor was.

"There was a door with a voice-activated passcode. For some reason it accepted the name 'Connor Franta' and then I just was able to logic out the code. It wasn't rand-"

"Connor Franta," Tyler interrupted loudly, as though suddenly reminded of something. "You-you...you were...Fuck, I lost it. I thought I'd remembered something. Never mind. Sorry."

Connor tried not to show his disappointment. "That's fine. It's-yeah. Fine."

"Sorry," Tyler said again. "You were saying something about a code to open a door? How did you figure that out?"

"It was kind of a bullshit activation code. The walls that ended up trapping me there had that same grid pattern across them, and I noticed that it was a division of nine squares in the big picture, and in each square was another nine squares, except the lines dividing them were thinner. They could keep getting smaller potentially to infinity. The code was literally infinite nines. I'm not really sure why I was so certain that must have been right, but it was."

Tyler looked impressed and amused. "Damn, boy. I fuckin' _never_ would've thought of that."

Connor smiled slightly. He suspected he could warm up to this Tyler guy.

XXX

"Jesus Christ, bro, what the fuck are you running from?"

As Jack stood up and helped the man he'd bowled over to his feet, he observed immediately that this man had an accent. European, definitely, though since Jack couldn't remember ever having heard any accents before, he wasn't sure what. He wasn't even sure why he knew it was European.

"Sorry," Jack said, glancing behind himself to see if whatever had been pursuing him was still there. It wasn't. "I really-I didn't expect to see anyone else here."

"Neither did I. Anyway, I'm Felix."

"I know," Jack said, then immediately regretted it. Felix gave him a surprised, suspicious look and Jack corrected himself. "I mean, yeah. I'm Sean, but you can call me Jack."

"Okay, Jack." Felix glanced around. "What're you doing here?"

"I...I don't really know. Just-trying to get out, I guess. Maybe you could help me?"

Felix laughed uncomfortably. "Like hell I will. I have no idea why I'm here. I'm just trying to get out, like you are."

Jack wasn't sure if this news was disappointing or not. It meant Felix wasn't going to be able to help him, but it also meant they were working for the same goal.

"Well, then," Jack said, "maybe we should stick together. From my experience, it might be for the best. I swear there really was something after me when I ran into you."

Felix frowned. "I believe you, but it seems weird. This place has been very quiet and neat and...not full of life."

Jack also frowned now. "Not...not in my experience. I wouldn't describe it that way at all. But I guess nothing says we're in the same situation."

Felix looked past Jack to the hallway behind him and started to head toward it. "I guess you're right about sticking together. After all, if this is the way you came from..." He walked out into the main hall, where the lights were still red, and caught sight of the other corridor off to his right. "We only have one way to go. I can tell you _that's_ a dead end," he said, nodding toward the way he'd come.

"Fine, it's a deal," Jack said, and followed Felix out to the Y in the passages. As soon as he set foot back into the red hall, something roared. It must have been whatever had been following Jack before, and as the two of them stood there in shocked fear, Jack caught sight of something huge coming up the hallway toward them.

"Fuck, run!" Jack said, breaking out of his surprise to grab Felix by the arm and pull him into the leftward hall.

They had only just broken into full sprints when Jack heard something crackle and buzz behind him, sounding like electricity. He risked a glance behind him and promptly slowed, calling to Felix, "Hold on! It's not chasing us."

The creature-whatever the hell it was, he couldn't tell from here-was trapped at the entrance to the hall. Every time it tried to enter, an electric field in the shape of a grid would appear, striking it back.

Felix walked back up next to Jack, both of them panting from their sprint and the adrenaline.

"What...the fuck...is it doing?" Felix said between breaths, but though Jack didn't answer, he quickly figured it out.

Jack walked a few paces closer to the monster and the energy field to get a better look. It seemed the thing was indeed not alive. It appeared to be a very complex machine, or more likely, a fully autonomous robot.

It stood on two thick legs, though it was in a permanent kind of crouch, and it had four 'arms,' two of which had clawed hands and the other two of which had blades. Its head looked too small for its body, with three small, spider-like eyes and a mouth full of metal fangs.

Whatever this was, it was meant to kill. Painfully.

"Something give me the feeling that thing wants you and couldn't care less about me," Felix said, still behind Jack.

"Yeah," Jack said slowly, turning away from the metal monster but only looking away from it at the last second. "I think whatever's going on with me is nothing like what you've seen yet, Felix."


	6. Chapter 6

Tyler and Connor spent some more time talking about what had gotten them to where they were now, but when they ran out of questions for each other, they found themselves wondering what to do next.

"So if that way is just a giant grid," Connor said, gesturing to the far end of the room, "and back there only leads up to where I got trapped-a really fucking long way up-are we stuck here?"

Tyler frowned. "I guess we could try going across the top of the grid. See if there are any more doors on this wall. But god, I'd rather not."

Judging from Connor's expression, he didn't want to either. Regardless, he stood up, walked past the strange boxes in the middle of the room, and approached the doorway that led out to the grid.

Tyler went to follow, accidentally kicking the box sculpture on his way. Cussing and being glad his shoes protected him from a stubbed toe, he continued toward Connor, but paused when he noticed something. The boxes hadn't been built into the floor, like he would've thought. They had shifted when he ran into them.

Dismissing this as irrelevant, he walked up to Connor.

"It's like...fascinating and sickening at the same time," Connor said, not taking his eyes off the grid.

Tyler scoffed a laugh. "It lost its appeal after _forever_ of having to climb up it."

Connor lifted a shoulder concededly, but said, "It looks like it's infinite. There's something terrifying and beautiful about that."

Tyler cocked his head and looked up at Connor, then shook his head and turned away. He was an interesting person, this Connor Franta. Tyler wished he could remember more about him. He wished he could remember more about _himself,_ too.

Tyler went back over to the stacked boxes in the center of the room. There was nothing special, about them, really. But maybe...

Frowning, Tyler braced himself against the floor and pushed against the stack. The boxes were all connected to each other, just not the floor, so the thing moved as a whole, sliding far enough that Tyler could see what was underneath it.

Nothing.

"What're you doing?" Connor asked with a frown as he walked up to Tyler's side.

Tyler cussed to himself. "Well, I noticed this thing moved and I thought maybe there was something underneath it. Like a trapdoor or something." He sighed. "Obviously there isn't."

Connor studied the situation for a moment. "I agree that there must be some sort of reason behind it being able to move. But I don't know what."

Tyler frowned. "Y'know, it's weird. Everything in this place has a purpose, I swear. It's like we were meant to escape."

"But-why?"

Tyler shrugged and sat down on the bottom box in the stack. "I don't know, but you'd think if we weren't supposed to escape, we would've encountered some resistance by now. But all it is is puzzles."

Connor nodded slowly. "You're right." He sat down next to Tyler, staring thoughtfully across the room with his green-hazel eyes.

"It's like it's all a test," Tyler thought aloud, rather than talking directly to Connor.

They sat in silence for a moment, both pondering this thought. When Connor spoke, however, it wasn't specifically about that. "What if this thing isn't covering something," Connor said, standing suddenly. "What if it's supposed to help us reach something? It's practically like a set of stairs."

Tyler thought this was perfectly reasonable idea, but he said jokingly, "Are you trying to say I'm short?"

Connor raised his eyebrows and fixed Tyler with a skeptical look.

Tyler laughed and said, "Oh, get out of here." It was strange how it didn't feel wrong for them to tease each other in such a manner, even though they'd only met an hour or so ago.

Connor grinned, but turned away, saying, "So maybe what we need to be looking for isn't something on the floor. It's something on the ceiling."

Tyler nodded and stood up, scanning the ceiling with his eyes for the outline of a door. He and Connor spent a few minutes searching before Connor stopped and said, "Tyler. We did use to know each other. We filmed videos together. I-I don't know why, but I remember that now."

Tyler frowned, the memories still vague to him, but nodded. "Yeah. So that's something coming back. Do you remember where you grew up? For some reason, I just remembered that about myself. It was Michigan. And I lived in Los Angeles before this all happened."

Connor paused, then shook his head, looking disappointed. "I don't remember that." It seemed Tyler had stolen Connor's moment of victory and he felt slightly bad.

"Well anyway," Tyler said to change the subject, "we need to see if we can find a motherfuckin' way out of here."

XXX

"Wait...what is this room?" Anthony asked, glancing around the place.

Ian took in the sight of where they'd ended up. It was a...room, he supposed, but he couldn't determine the size of it because there were large spikes, like artificial stalactites, protruding from the ceiling. Some met the floor, while others ended a few feet short. Still present, but less prominent, were shiny stalagmites rising from the ground to match their counterparts on the ceiling.

"This place is so fucking weird," Ian said quietly.

"Hang on," Anthony said, then hesitated. He glanced to Ian before saying, "I think I hear voices. Am I crazy again?"

Ian paused and cocked his head to listen. Surely enough, he could hear faint voices, one maybe feminine and a few masculine-though it was hard to tell with the echoes. He nodded to Anthony. "No, I hear them. They sound pretty far off, though."

Anthony looked slightly relieved. "Do you think that's a bad thing, or a good thing? I would think meeting up with other people would be good, but in this place...Jesus. I wouldn't trust anything."

Ian frowned and considered this. "I don't know, but do we have much of a choice? The only way to go is forward."

"True," Anthony conceded.

Without another word, they started onward through the maze of columns and spikes, most of which started at about a foot and half in diameter. Those that didn't reach the floor ended in a sharp point.

"Anthony," Ian said after a few minutes of shimmying past columns that were only a foot or so apart.

"Hm?" Anthony sort of grunted in return.

"Do you remember Smosh?"

Anthony stopped dead. He was silent for a moment before saying, "I...I do. We were Smosh, along with...a bunch of other people. We made comedy videos."

Ian nodded. "I think...I think we were fairly popular."

Anthony nodded in agreement. "I wish I could remember who else had been a part of it. But Jesus, I'm still missing so much. That seems like it was big part of our lives, yet...I don't even remember where we lived."

"I know," Ian sighed. "It kinda sucks. But I've noticed something."

Anthony didn't respond, but Ian suspected that was just his way of letting Ian continue.

"These memories aren't just coming back to us randomly, or a little bit at a time. It's like every time we make progress, we remember a handful of things. Am I crazy, or is this really a pattern?"

Anthony was silent for a moment, probably thinking back to the last time they remembered something about themselves. "I think you might be right. Finding that card was the first thing, and then we remembered our last names. Then we got out, but were preoccupied almost immediately, so we didn't really have time to remember anything else. Now we're here, one step further, and we remember about Smosh. You're right, Ian."

Ian nodded. "I'm not sure it's enough to go off of, but it seems like a pattern. We'll have to wait and see."

Not long after this realization, Anthony stopped behind some white stalactites that obscured him from Ian's view.

"I think I found something. Yeah, this is definitely a door."

Ian made his way over to Anthony to see a small rectangular shape in the wall, barely taller than Ian, but definitely a way out.

"Is there a way to open it?" Ian asked.

Anthony nodded, putting his hands against it and sliding it to the right.

They both took in what was on the other side-Anthony having to lean down slightly due to the shortness of the doorway-and finished looking with no words.

"What the hell is it?"

Anthony shook his head. "I have no idea. I mean, it's a...a giant grid, but I feel like that doesn't do it justice."

Ian raised his eyebrows and looked back out to the grid again. It seemed that they were on the top of a grid that extended a very long distance in every direction. Whatever sort of "room" this grid was in, it seemed too large to be real. This was, like, twelve times that Boeing building-which Ian was pretty sure he hadn't even been to, but who the hell knew at this point?-which was supposedly the largest building (by volume) in the world.

"Ian, I still hear voices." He paused and they looked at each other. "I feel like we have two options. We can either go through this and find out what the hell is out there, or we can keep going through this room and find out who we're hearing."

Ian thought about it for a moment, then said, "That seems like a pretty easy decision. I don't think we'll regret trying to meet up with someone else."

"Right," Anthony said slowly, and Ian knew there was a "but" coming. "But I'm thinking that if we walk away from this door, I'm not going to be able to find my way back here. Those voices still sound like they're a little ways off."

Ian looked around. Everything looked almost exactly the same in here. Despite the seemingly random placement of each column or spiked protrusion, it was strangely uniform. There was nothing that would make this area stand out any more than another.

"What's your vote, then?" Ian asked.

Anthony took a moment to answer, glancing back out to the grid. "I say we go find out who's here. They might be here for the same reason we are-whatever that is."

Ian nodded. "'Kay. I agree."

And with that, they left the door-open, in case it would help them find it again-and headed out to see whom they would meet.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: We've almost reached the end of what I've written! Ack! Thanks so much for reading, enjoying, and leaving reviews. I hope to continue working on this, but I have very little time nowadays. I'll still try to keep going for you, though. Until then, here's the next part of what I have:**

It hadn't taken much longer to find the door in the ceiling, but Connor was impressed that Tyler had spotted it. It was outlined by a very vague line in the ceiling, right in the corner of the room where it could easily be missed.

It swung down without problems, and when they positioned their makeshift stairs underneath it and climbed up, they found small, empty room with a single, handle-less door.

"Fuck it," Tyler started as they both examined the room, "I know this isn't very important right now, but I'm, like, starving. I'm pretty sure I've been here for two days now and I haven't had anything but a bit of water. I could really use some Chipotle right now."

Connor nodded vaguely in agreement. He was hungry too, of course, but there was so much going on in his brain right then that food wasn't a priority. After Tyler had made him realize he had no idea where he'd grown up, it started bothering him more that he remembered so little about himself. In addition to that, he was still confused about the idea that maybe he and Tyler were _supposed_ to be here and they had been meant to get out. All of this was just someone's plan.

Connor tried to shake it all out of his mind as he saw Tyler try to open the door. Nothing happened.

"Shit," Tyler said, frustrated. "This might just be a dead-end."

Connor was about to mutter some choice words of his own when he noticed a concave area of the wall next to the door. It was a perfect square, sunken into the wall four or five inches, and it seemed very relevant right then. Surely it was no coincidence that it was right next to a door that wouldn't open.

Connor stepped up to it and glanced into it, then immediately backpedaled, nearly running into Tyler. "Oh, Jesus. Sorry. That startled me."

Tyler frowned. "What?"

Connor shook his head. "It's nothing. There was a spider in there and it startled me." His next comment held a hint of sarcasm. "No big deal, just that I fucking hate them."

Tyler muttered something under his breath that Connor didn't catch, then said, "I'm so out of here. I'm not fucking here for this."

They both turned toward the door to the room below...to find it was no longer there. The floor was solid, despite the fact that they had left the trapdoor open.

Connor rolled his eyes in frustration. "Okay, whatever. We'll figure out a way to open that door."

"Connor," Tyler squeaked, and Connor followed his gaze to find the source of his fear.

Hundreds upon hundreds of spiders.

Most were maybe twice the size of a wolf spider, though they varied in size, and they were pouring out of the concave section of wall, spreading across the walls and onto the floor and ceiling.

"Oh fuck," Connor said, both he and Tyler backing up to the opposite corner of the room. "Oh my fucking god, I was not ready for this."

"How is it we're both afraid of spiders, and now this?" Tyler said, his voice getting very high-pitched on the last word.

As much as Connor didn't want to look at the creepy bastards crawling around the room toward him, he couldn't help but notice that they were all the same shade of gray, and they seemed slightly glossy or metallic...

They weren't alive. They were tiny robots.

That did not, however, make them any less terrifying.

"Connor, it's a test," Tyler said, his voice unsteady as he stepped slightly closer to Connor in an attempt to avoid the spiders, which were undoubtedly coming toward them, not just moving randomly. He sounded more like he was telling himself this more than Connor.

"I don't fucking care," Connor said, then felt a spider on his ankle. He shrieked and savagely brushed it off, but there were too many. They all started to climb up his legs, and some dropped down from the ceiling on webs to land on his shoulders and hair.

Tyler seemed like he was in partial denial. He had one hand covering his mouth-the other was clenched into a fist-and his eyes clenched shut, but he was still.

Connor knew-and he didn't know how, but he knew-that the better they handled this, the faster it would be over.

"Shit, you're right," he said tightly, his whole body tensed against the sensation of hundreds of legs crawling on his skin-he could even feel them through his clothes. "We have to just let it happen." He saw Tyler nod, not opening his eyes.

The spiders were so thick on the ceiling above them that they dimmed the light in the room, which made it slightly easier, since Connor couldn't see the things. He felt a spider crawling down on his temple and he shut his eyes, a shudder starting to go down his spine. He forced himself to be still. Just block it out, Connor. You're fine, there's nothing there...

The sensation of spiders everywhere was becoming unbearable. They were in his hair, on his neck, crawling across his arms and legs...

Then, all light from the room disappeared. Whether it was from the spiders or from the lights actually going out, Connor couldn't tell since he had his eyes closed, but he could tell through his eyelids that it was pitch-dark.

Then the lights flicked back on, and all the spiders were gone. It took Connor a moment to accept that there really were no spiders, but his senses weren't lying to him. He opened his eyes slowly to find the room completely empty except for himself and Tyler next to him.

Connor was still shaking, but a wave of relief washed over him. He turned to Tyler and put his forehead on the young man's shoulder, closing his eyes again and trying to calm down so his heart would stop pounding and his body would stop shaking. He had felt Tyler start slightly when he'd first touched him, but then he mostly ignored, him, probably trying to sort through his own problems.

"Oh my god," Tyler said, starting to sound normal again, "you're, like, seriously shaking. Are you okay?"

Connor straightened, saying, "No. No, I'm fucking not okay. What the hell was that? And why are they all just gone all of a sudden?"

"I don't know," Tyler said slowly, looking around the room. "But that door is open now."

Jack and Felix and continued down the hall until it ended. There were no doors along the walls, no branches into other corridors. It just ended in a single, white door that had a small rectangular window in the middle. Across the glass was, unsurprisingly, a pinkish-red grid.

Felix went fearlessly up to the door and peered in the window.

"Is there anything in there?" Jack asked.

Felix answered without turning around. "Some sort of equipment. Scientific stuff, maybe? I don't know, but I don't see any other doors in there."

"Could we go in and check?"

Felix shrugged and stepped away from the door instead of trying the handle himself. Jack frowned. There was something weird about Felix's behavior-he seemed ever-so-slightly cold ever since Jack had met him, and something about that didn't seem right. Jack tried to tell himself it was crazy to get a sense of deja vu around this man-he was almost positive they'd never met-but still. He couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't how Felix should be acting, and the only way he would know that was if he'd met him before.

Jack went up to the door and pulled the handle down. It twisted with ease and the door opened with a long creak.

The room inside was about what Felix's words had promised-mostly empty except for a tall, clunky machine in the center of the floor. It stood taller than Jack and reminded him of one of those fancy x-ray machines you'd find in a dentist's place-not the kind they just pointed at you, but the kind you actually stood in while a part of the machine spun around you.

"What the fuck is it?" Felix asked from behind Jack, startling him slightly since he hadn't known Felix had followed him in here.

Jack shook his head. "I don't know any more than you do."

"Voice-activated commands enabled," a female computer voice said, startling both of them this time. "State your name annnnn-" The computer seemed to get stuck, looping the 'n' sound over and over, before it stopped suddenly.

A more warbled, deeper computer voice, still somewhat feminine, kicked in instead. "I can show you what you have forgotten."

Jack stepped back from the machine, seeing the inside of it start to light up with red lights. "What the fuck," he said as a statement, looking to Felix and back.

Felix was frowning, his gaze fixed on the machine. He didn't seem tempted by its offer, but he seemed...curious. Jack rather just wanted to get the fuck out.

"Why do you know anything about who we are?" Felix asked as though talking to a person. Jack didn't expect the computer voice to respond, but it did.

"You are the only one who does not know, Felix Kjellberg."

Felix froze for a moment, then glanced to Jack and back at the machine, which did indeed seem to be the source of the voice. "So you can tell me...everything?"

Jack looked at Felix, realizing that maybe he _was_ tempted by it. "Felix, no. Are you fuckin' kidding me? You have no idea what that thing could do to your mind."

Felix tossed him a look-a somewhat blank, unreadable look-and didn't say anything.

The computer responded, "Not you, Felix. Your memorrrrr-" It got stuck once again, looping the sound of that r over and over. When it spoke again, the voice was even more warbled and deep, no longer resembling a female voice. It was a grotesque attempt at a voice at all. "You are not compatible with this equipment. Only Sean McLoughlin will be able to regain memory from here."

Jack's heart started beating harder in his chest. "Well...I refuse. I don't want whatever you're trying to do with my brain."

"Very well. But without going through this process, you may not proceed. This is a dead-end until you recover your memories."

"Fuck. That sounds like a threat." Jack glanced at Felix. "But I believe it."

Felix immediately shook his head, which surprised Jack. "No. There's got to be a different way."

Jack frowned. "Well you seemed willing to try it yourself. Why is it different for me to do it?"

"I never said I was willing to do it myself. And it just seems like a bad idea. We have no idea what this machine is."

Jack narrowed his eyes slightly. "I feel like you might just be jealous that I'm getting something you won't."

He had said it cautiously, not particularly accusatorily, but Felix seemed to take offense.

"I was just trying to fucking keep you from throwing away your safety like that. If you want to let that thing mess with your brain, fine. I was willing to take the risk because I'm desperate, and I didn't think you were the same. But since you are, go right ahead."

Jack opened his mouth as though to say something, but he realized he had nothing to say. He shut it again and turned away. So many questions ran through his mind: Why was Felix desperate? Why was he so easy to provoke? Why did Jack feel that there was something very wrong about that behavior?

He took a deep breath and shook his head. Now was not the time to think about questions he had no answers for.

Now was the time to make a choice.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Good news! I found another chapter of this to post. Now, I'm not still writing it, but I had a lot written, so I have this and I think one more chapter after this. Enjoy.**

Tyler and Connor exited the spider room all too eagerly and found themselves on a catwalk. The grate underneath their feet was a perfect, shiny grid with one-inch square holes. The entire catwalk-which ran along the walls of the large room and across the middle-was red, though the walls were still white like the rest of the building.

Two things about this room stood out to Tyler. First, the fact that it was much more dimly lit than most of the rooms had been. There were lights on the ceiling, a least hundred feet above their heads, but they didn't cast light all the way down to the floor, which was the other thing that stood out. The floor was many, many hundreds of yards below, which made it all the more obvious that the catwalk didn't have rails. None of them did. There were at least a dozen catwalks below them, all connected by a single ladder that ran all the way down to the ground.

Tyler was really fucking tired of heights.

"What the hell is all this?" Connor asked from behind him.

Tyler didn't answer-he didn't have an answer. He stepped forward onto the part of the catwalk that split the room in two. It was a good three feet wide, but it still wasn't comfortable to stand on.

"You afraid of heights?" Tyler asked, turning back to Connor.

Connor frowned, looking down through the catwalk beneath his feet, and shook his head. "I don't think so. I've been bungee jumping before, if that tells you anything."

Tyler raised his eyebrows. "You remember something new, then?"

Connor looked almost surprised. "Yeah, I guess so."

They both looked down suddenly as they heard a door slide open below them. Right below Connor's feet, two catwalks down, a door opened and someone stepped out. From Tyler's angle, he could see blond hair and an outfit just like his own, but he couldn't make out much else through the grids.

The two boys looked back up at each other.

"Should we go see who it is?" Tyler asked.

"Do we have a choice?" Connor answered with a question.

Tyler left the middle part of the catwalk and they both made their way to the ladder by sticking to the wall, neither fully willing to take the shorter route when there was a slightly safer option.

As they started down the ladder-Tyler had never particularly liked ladders, but this was far worse than usual, what with being suspended hundreds of yards above the floor-the person below must have noticed them.

"Connor? Tyler?" It was a woman's voice, and it struck Tyler as being very familiar.

Tyler got off the ladder still one catwalk above the newcomer so he could turn to see her. "Hannah? You remember us?"

Hannah-Hannah Hart, as he recalled-looked up at them and nodded. "I...I remember your names. Why are you surprised?"

Tyler frowned, letting Connor pass him before getting back on the ladder. "Should I not be? Do you remember everything?"

Hannah paused for a moment, but Tyler couldn't see her expression, so he wasn't sure why. Then she said, "I see how this goes. No, I don't remember much, and neither must you two."

Tyler nodded as he stepped onto the catwalk across the room from Hannah. He noticed that Connor was oddly silent, a small frown dampening his expression.

He didn't remember her.

Hannah trotted across the catwalk to them. "Is it okay if I give you a hug?" she asked Tyler.

"Of course!" Tyler said, and embraced her. He certainly didn't remember everything about her, but he knew they were good friends, and that was enough.

"You too, Connor," Hannah said, and while Connor smiled and accepted the hug, Tyler could tell that this situation was making him feel awkward. For some reason, he didn't remember as much as Tyler did.

"So what's happened to you?" Tyler asked, diverting attention from Connor.

"All sorts of insane shit," Hannah answered with a sigh. "But mostly just wandering around this place thinking none of this is really possible. I also thought I was alone. Like, really alone. I never expected to see you two."

"I'm starting to get the feeling," Connor said, speaking for the first time since they'd met up with Hannah, "that there are a lot of people stuck in here. And I don't know if we all have something in common, but I feel like we might."

Tyler looked at him. "You've got a hell of an intuition, Connor, but I'm inclined to believe you."

Hannah looked around. "So what now, you guys?"

Tyler glanced off the side of the catwalk. "I guess we just head down."

Not much more was said as the three of them started down the ladder and into the dimness below.

Tyler went first, Hannah second, and Connor last, which Tyler never would have made a second thought about.

Until he felt his foot hit the lever. He was just starting past the last catwalk and was only about twelve feet from the ground. He put his right foot down, expecting to feel another rung, when instead the bar underneath him swung to the side, catching him off balance. He nearly slipped off the ladder, but narrow saved himself, slamming a nerve on his elbow in the process.

Tyler began to curse as his arm went tingly and numb, but was cut off of his section of ladder fell into free-fall.

He felt it only a second before the bottom of the ladder hit the ground and the whole thing fell backward. He heard Hannah scream and found himself shrieking as well, and then he landed. Hard.

The breath was knocked out of him, cutting his shout short, and the ladder fell onto his chest.

He spent a few moments-seconds, a minute?-regaining his breath and his thoughts, then pushed the ladder off himself and rolled onto his hands and knees.

He looked up, straight ahead, and saw Hannah pushing the other half of the ladder off herself. It was only a small section of the ladder, Tyler realized, or it wouldn't have landed flat on the ground-the room was taller than it was long.

He stood up, looking up to where the ladder had broken off. It had broken cleanly-purposefully-at about the third catwalk, at least thirty feet up, and Connor was still on it.

Tyler turned back to Hannah momentarily and helped her to her feet. "Are you okay?"

She was frowning, but nodded, looking slightly dazed. She had fallen from higher up than Tyler had and he hoped she hadn't hit her head badly when they landed.

Tyler looked back up to Connor, who was scrambling onto the third catwalk.

"Connor? You alright up there?" Tyler asked.

"Yeah," Connor said a bit breathlessly. "Are you?" he asked, addressing both of them.

Tyler nodded and glanced to Hannah, who also nodded, but more hesitantly.

Connor looked down at where the ladder had disconnected, just below him. "I don't think there's a way down now, you guys. Unless you can lift that piece back up here?"

Tyler and Hannah made an attempt to lift the ladder simultaneously. It wasn't very heavy-like the catwalks, it wasn't made of metal-but lifting more than twenty-five feet of ladder is awkwardly top-heavy, and Tyler and Hannah weren't the buffest duo.

After much grunting and cussing, they managed to get the ladder leaning against the second catwalk, and from there could lift it up to Connor's height. He grabbed it and made an attempt to reconnect the two pieces, but had no luck. The ladder had been suspended a few feet off the ground, so it couldn't lean against the catwalks to let Connor down, and even if it could, it would be far too unstable to be safe.

The disaster ended with Connor accidentally dropping the ladder and Tyler and Hannah having to scurry out of the way as it slammed into the ground and the second catwalk then slid to the floor.

"I'm sorry, guys, I'll have to find another way out," Connor said at last, in defeat.

"Don't be sorry," Tyler scolded him. "I'm sorry I wasn't watching where I put my stupid foot."

"We'll work something out," Hannah said, ever the optimist. "Maybe there's a way we can meet up just out of here."

Connor nodded. "I have a few options, so if I feel like I'm going nowhere, I can head back here and try a different door. You two can keep going-someone has to find a way out of here."

"If everything else leads to a dead-end," Hannah continued, "I know you can go back where I came out of. There were other hallways I hadn't explored."

"Okay, thanks."

"Connor?" Tyler added, "Be careful."

Connor gave him a brief smile and nod. He stood up from where he'd been kneeling at the edge of the catwalk and started to assess his options.

Tyler looked to Hannah. "'Kay," he said through a sigh. "Now let's see what's behind that door."

The voices had gone silent. They had done so not long after Ian and Anthony had last finished speaking, so Ian figured whoever else was here had heard them.

The room of spikes didn't seem to be very wide, but it was long and kept curving. Ian also guessed that there was little to no chance of passing the people ahead without seeing them.

Ian realized the stalactites were starting to thin out as they continued, and as he was about to point this out to Anthony, he caught sight of someone ahead. Tapping Anthony's shoulder, Ian made brief eye contact with his friend before gesturing.

It seemed there were three of them. There was a woman, whom Ian could see most clearly, who appeared to be Asian and had long, red-dyed hair. The other two were men, one with bright orange hair and the other, who was partially obscured by one of the hourglass columns, dark-haired and shorter.

The trio caught sight of Ian and Anthony almost as soon as Ian had seen them.

"Hey," the red-haired woman said, approaching them with the two men following behind. "You guys look familiar."

Ian and Anthony looked at each other and said simultaneously, "We do?"

She smiled briefly, then frowned thoughtfully. "Yeah, but sorry if I don't remember you. I'm, uh, having some minor amnesia issues right now. You don't remember me, you mean?"

Ian shook his head and said, "You're not the only one who can't remember everything."

Still frowning, she nodded. "Yeah, these two were like that. I guess we all are. Anyway, I'm Mari. This is David-Lasercorn-and that's Matt Sohinki."

"She's right," the latter said. "You two do look familiar."

"So what the hell are you guys doing here?" Anthony asked. "Same as us?"

Mari seemed to be the talker in this situation. "Well, if you've been wandering around aimlessly, looking for a way out of here ever since you made it out of a little cell, yeah. We are doing the same thing."

Ian raised his eyebrows and nodded, but it was Anthony who replied. "Did you three all start out in the same place, or did you meet up along the way?"

"He and I were together," Sohinki said, gesturing to Lasercorn. "She found us a few hours ago. If it was a few hours ago. Hell if I can tell time."

"So what do you think of continuing together?" Ian asked. "We're all trying to get out of here. Might as well do it as a group."

"Sounds good to me," Mari said. "This place is kind of tricky. The more brainpower, the better. You guys know of a way out of this stupid room?"

"Yeah, if we can find it again," Anthony replied.

They chatted back and forth, sorting out the similarities and differences of their situations-since no one could remember much about themselves-as they headed back to try to find the door to the grid. The more time Ian spent around these three and the more he listened to them talk, the more he felt that he did know them. He had known them in whatever life he'd had before here. It drove him crazy that he couldn't remember more.

He also felt that something was missing. Someone was missing. Obviously, these weren't the only friends he'd had, but they were of a certain group, and within that small group, someone was missing.

Of course, he had no idea who.

"Dammit, I swear it should have been around here," Anthony said in frustration a few minutes later, when they'd gotten to where Ian and Anthony felt the door should be. "I even left it open so we'd find it more easily."

"Well guys," Lasercorn said, sounding slightly puzzled as he looked back at the area they'd just left, "it's moving."

"What?" at least two of them, including Ian, said at once, turning to see what he was looking at.

Indeed, the entire other half of the room, where they'd found Lasercorn, Mari, and Sohinki, was silently sliding away to left. The cross-section of a wall slid by, then revealed another section of room, much like the first. The difference would have been easy to miss, except that Ian distinctly remembered the previous room had curved to the left, and this one went to the right instead.

"Well, that's fucked up," Sohinki said.

"Shit, so that door is probably gone now," Anthony sighed.

"Yeah, but now we have a different way to go. That's gotta lead somewhere," Ian said, trying to be optimistic.

With a few nods from the rest of the group, the started back the way they'd just come.

And Ian couldn't shake the suspicion that someone was toying with them.


End file.
